


Sage Advice

by eve11



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-25
Updated: 2012-09-25
Packaged: 2017-11-15 00:34:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eve11/pseuds/eve11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the Power of Three, the Doctor keeps busy by visiting an old friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sage Advice

**Author's Note:**

> A plot bunny from ladymercury_10 on lj. All mistakes my own.

The bell rang just as Craig was tossing the last handful of little black cubes into the third of the large plastic leaf bags he'd gathered from the cellar. He cinched the bag, swiped a hand at his brow, and started practicing what he would say if it was anyone well-meaning and religious. 

"Hello Craig!" the Doctor said when the door opened, and bustled in past Craig before he could so much as gasp a surprised little "oh" and stare agape. "News of my demise and all that--" he clapped his hands and grinned. "Anyway! What's new, how've you been--Is that what they ask these days?--How's Sophie, Stormy? You've got jobs, right? Jobs, very human, keeps you out of trouble, and anyway I thought I'd pop by. Tell me, do you need anything fixed?"

"I knew it," was all Craig said, following the whirlwind of chin and tweed into the house. 

"Anything at all?" the Doctor continued, traipsing across a Saturday morning multicolored mess strewn across the living room. "Carburetors, elevators, refrigerators, alligators--no, no, never mind about those, I took care of them in the sewers in nineteen-seventy-three . . . Anything need looking after, investigated, fate of the world in the balance, that sort--" Then he stopped and pirouetted in the middle of the living room. "Knew what?" he asked. 

On the telly, puppet children with squeaky voices sang a song about cubes. 

"I knew those cubes were weird!" Craig turned around and called back into the house. "Soph! The Doctor's here! I told you those cubes were bad news!"

"Bad news . . . " the Doctor said, noticing the floor for the first time. "Bad news indeed!" In one fluid movement he'd scooped up a mid-sized object from amidst the mess on the floor and thrust the business end of his sonic at it. "Very bad news, and what have we here? I don't believe it!" The sonic whirred and the Doctor paced. "The Pond's cubes were all black and boring and I sat in their lounge for four days while those cubes did absolutely nothing! Four days. Nothing! And yours. . ." the Doctor trailed off, looking back over at Craig. "Yours have turned green, Craig. Green!" He thrust the block out triumphantly, squeezing it in just the right spot, just as Sophie came hurrying down the steps. 

"A!" the block said in a chirpy, gender-neutral child voice. "Apple!"

"Hello, Doctor!" Sophie said. Her hair was tied back in a kerchief. "You've caught us in a bit of a disaster, I'm afraid." 

"I'm good at--" the Doctor started, still holding out the block.

"Don't say it," said Craig. Sophie just grinned.

"Spring cleaning," she said. "I know, I know, in July."

The Doctor narrowed his eyes at the block, and tossed it back to the floor. "Andy Ate Apples!" it proclaimed, producing a squeal of delight from the space on the other side of the sofa. Sophie nimbly navigated the mess and scooped up the source of the sound--a pudgy, approximately-nine-month-old baby who, having gathered the (perfectly normal, plastic) cube, was now intent on covering it, corner by corner, in saliva.

"And is that young Alfie?" the Doctor asked, pointing.

Craig sighed. "He's in his bedroom. Sulking, because everyone else's dad is letting them keep the weird black cubes."

"Everyone else's. . . " The Doctor looked back at the baby. "That's not Alfie?"

"Wearing a dress," Craig pointed out. 

"Hidden _mostly_ behind that bib there," argued the Doctor. "The one that says--" 

"Daddy's girl?" Craig interrupted.

The sonic whirred. "That's--"

"That's Frankie."

"Now, hang on, you just said--!"

"Francesca," said Sophie. She hitched the baby further up on her hip, and helped her wave her tiny hand. "Say hello to the Doctor, Frankie." 

Realization dawned, and the Doctor beamed. He tapped his nose with the sonic, tossed it end over end before catching it and pocketing it. "Six billion, four hundred thousand and twenty eight!" he said with a grin. 

Frankie beamed back and blew a raspberry. The Doctor raised his eyebrows.

"Oh really?" he said, and turned to Craig. "You know she prefers to be called Princess Crystal, Queen of the Unicorns?"

Sophie fingered Frankie's moistened bib, looked up toward the top of the stairs, and then smiled hopefully at the Doctor. "Did I hear you ask if anything needed looking after?"

**

The Doctor knocked lightly on the upstairs bedroom door and heard a muffled "Go away!" from inside. He pushed the door open anyway and stuck his head in. 

"Sorry. Can't," he said to the stocky, sullen eight-year-old kicking his heels at the foot of the bed. He stepped gingerly into the room, brow furrowed. "I've been sent. Hello, I'm the Doctor. Friend of your parents. Adult. Boring. I know." Before Alfie could answer, the Doctor was sonicking his room. He scanned the football posters on the wall, the spines of books about dinosaurs and kid sleuths, the pastel blue curtains and chest of drawers, the messy desk with its clunky tower computer and monitor, and sequestered in the corner, the plastic toybin full of cars and pieces of lego. He flicked the screwdriver, examined it, and tucked it away again. Not a black cube in sight; Craig and Sophie must have been quite thorough.

"So this is your bedroom, Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All," he said.

Alfie had been glaring--trying to insert overdramatic eye-rolls past his curiosity--but instead he blinked and stood up. "Nobody knows that name! That's--" his eyes flicked to the computer and back again. 

"Video game?" the Doctor guessed.

Alfie sighed. "World of Warcraft. That's my Dark Elf's name. I didn't even tell my dad yet."

"Ah, yes," the Doctor said. "I did. Long time ago, now. Apparently." He scrutinized the child in front of him again. "Why are you sulking and not playing your game?"

Alfie kicked half-heartedly at the tower. "Mum won't unlock it until I finish my chores, and then only for an hour," he said. 

"Yes, that's good. That's very good," said the Doctor, interrupting. "I've never been keen on lands of fiction." 

"Anyway, I'm not sulking--"

The Doctor ignored him. "What else have you got to do around here? Your dad says cubes are out--"

"Pete and Roger made forts with theirs!" Alfie exclaimed. The Doctor started to say something, then cocked his head.

"Blimey," he said. "How many did they have?"

" _Thousands_ ," said Alfie. He huffed and slumped back onto the bed. "And Dad's throwing all of ours away. He's so. . . "

"Smart?" said the Doctor. 

"That's not what I was gonna say."

"Yeah, I know it's not." The Doctor sat down on the bed next to Alfie and took out the sonic screwdriver again. "But he is pretty smart, your Dad. And I think he's cool. Did he ever tell you how he saved the world?" 

"He saved the world," Alfie said dubiously, and pointed at the sonic. "What is that?"

"'He did. Twice. Well, I helped." The Doctor tossed the screwdriver over to Alfie. "That's proof, or at least it's something to do this afternoon. Setting seven ex polka dot queue. Point it… oh, right next to that toybox of yours, press the button there, and think of something amazing."

Alfie studied the sonic, clicking the numerals into place.

"Twice," said the Doctor, and he flounced back on the bed, his frenetic energy gone in the space of a heartbeat. 

Alfie pointed the sonic at the corner, pressed the button, and thought of the most amazing fort he could ever possibly imagine. Downstairs, Sophie had cleared the living room floor, and started the vacuum. Alfie's bedroom curtains began to swirl. 

The Doctor sat up and looked out the window, to where Craig was lugging three large lawn bags out for the trash. "I thought I was popping by to keep busy," he said. "But I wasn't, was I? Your dad, Alfie--if he thinks the best thing to do is dump them in the bins, well, who am I to argue . . ." 

But Alfie wasn't listening. The wind died down. Alfie stared. 

"So as I said, your dad says cubes are out--" The Doctor stood abruptly, and toed a football from where it had been peeking out under the bed. He caught it against the top of his foot and crook of his ankle, snapped his fingers, and flicked the ball through the open TARDIS door. "I've got a pitch in there somewhere. How are you with truncated icosahedrons?"


End file.
